People are just tired of being at the wrong end of an equation that rewards established wealth while hollowing out the opportunities for the average citizen. It's not so easy to govern anymore behind the veil of complexity and secrecy, and that's just as it should be in a democracy.

The Ontario-based coffee retailer made popular by unpretentious, family-loving, hard-working resource employees from Prince Rupert, B.C. to Fort McMurray, Alta. to St. John's, NL just told its core customers to take a hike.

Over the past eight months, I have had the pleasure of being one of Conrad Black's editors. His blogs have arrived weekly from prison like clockwork. Often I wondered how he wrote these from prison. I don't just mean the mechanics (because those were obviously an issue: How do you get access to a computer? Do you have Internet?). But how did he manage to keep up on everything? Reading his highly informed and topical blogs you would never know this was a man almost entirely cut off from the information sources we take for granted. Here's the bottom line: The key to Conrad's survival has been his mind.